A Determined, Designing Woman

from Country ZEST & Style Spring 2022 Edition

LETTER from PARIS: Out of Water, Out of Luck

A Determined, Designing Woman

By Vicky Moon

The 100 lambs are ridiculously charming. So, it’s easy to get overly ambitious and hard to be a disciplined shepherd.

Franny Kansteiner grew up in Birmingham, Alabama and said, “It was all I ever wanted to do, to live on a farm, to have a rural life. I stayed on a friend’s horse farm and was given chores to do each morning which their children might have resented, but I cherished.”

Bingo, fast forward. She’s now married to Walter Kansteiner III, with grown children Chalker Kansteiner and his sister, Beverly Burden, and her children, Angus, 8, and Scout, 5. Imagine a drone camera is floating slowly over the 100 acres of Gum Tree Farm near Middleburg, which began with three starter sheep 27 years ago. These days, 300 Merino sheep now graze blissfully.

In another corner of the property, 100 recently weaned lambs are bleating for their mommas. They will soon get over it and Gum Tree Farm will shift gears to shearing. “When the lambs are a year-old, they get their first haircut. Sheep shearing for us is in the early spring,” Franny said. “That’s where lambswool comes from. We shear the mothers as well. And, their wool is still extremely soft.”

**Franny Kansteiner calls it “warm love.**
Photo by Doug Gehlsen of Middleburg Photo

The wool gets an organic wash, a blow out, and then is spun and woven. There are 45 tasteful designs for capes, tunics, vests, jackets, dresses and ponchos along with smart shirts for men and women, coats and trousers. And also hand knitted pieces for babies.

“To paraphrase Coco Chanel,” Franny noted, “our designs reflect our ideas of the way we want to live our lives on this earth. We try to create classic designs with distinctive details.”